Now the Financial Times' Patrick Jenkins, Sharlene Goff and Anousha Sakoui report these cuts could include slashing up to 10,000 jobs.

The cuts are expected to focus on RBS’s equities business, which has failed to compete in the upper rankings of the industry. This division generated just £623m of the £5bn of revenue produced by the investment bank in the first nine months of last year.

One person familiar with the bank’s plan said it was preparing to exit the cash equities business entirely and may also withdraw from equity derivatives, mergers and acquisitions advisory and shrink its structured credit and interest rates business.